Women continue to give up their property: the spiral of emotional and social pressure
Although women and men in Montenegro have equal inheritance rights under the law, in practice women continue to renounce their share of inherited property in favor of their brothers, sons, or other family members, often under the guise of acting voluntarily or “for the good of the family.” The state does not keep records of …
Remembering what is shared
In Kosovo, preserving the history of exchange among communities is an act of anti-ethnonationalist resistance and hope. As a child, searching for depictions of my homeland in the diaspora were always coloured by the persistent portrayal that Albanians and Serbs were forever at odds. Every headline seemed to reinforce the same narrative: our communities were …
Monthly Monitoring Highlights – June
During the month of June, the RDN monitoring team identified a range of hateful narratives and discourse on ethnic and religious grounds alongside attacks on journalists and professionals and anti-LGBTQI+ sentiments. Attack on journalists in Serbia and Montenegro The month of June for Serbia was one marked by a heightened number of attacks on journalists. One involved journalist Kristina …
31 years later, part of the media in Republika Srpska still relativises the genocide in Srebrenica
Once again, judicially established facts are omitted, the victims are portrayed through ethnic or military affiliation, and the commemoration is presented through narratives that diminish its importance. Relativisation and revisionism were also present during the commemoration of the thirty-first anniversary of the genocide committed against Bosniaks in Srebrenica in the majority of analysed portals of …
A Lie Has No Legs, Flamingos Have One
What began as a local revolt against the construction of a luxury complex in the protected area of Zvërnec, in Albania, transformed within a few weeks into what is being labelled the Flamingo Revolution. This protest, which has now taken on the dimensions of a broader resistance against a 35-year-old political system, is taking place not …
25 Years Since Serbia’s First Pride
First Pride: “A Brawl” and Nothing More? Twenty-five years ago, the first “revolutionary” Pride was held in Belgrade, Serbia. It ended in massive violence for which no one was ever fully held accountable. That is what most media coverage still comes down to, and outlets haven’t distinguished themselves in their coverage of the LGBT+ community …
Troll of the Month: Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania
The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkan region. Escalating political tensions in Albania marked this month as anti-corruption …
TROLL OF THE MONTH – SELECTION CRITERIA
The goal of the Reporting Diversity Network 2.0 monitoring is to identify and document the most significant cases (‘incidents’) of hate speech and divisive discourses in the Western Balkans media. Incidents are defined by the speaker regardless of where they occurred, but monitoring refers to their media coverage. They can originate in the Parliament, party …
Criminal charges against journalists are an attack on press freedom
The Reporting Diversity Network expresses its full solidarity with investigative journalists Đurđa Radulović and Andrea Perišić from the Centre for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG). The two journalists, also long-time contributors to RDN‘s work, are now facing criminal charges filed by Ivica Janović, Director of the Montenegrin Agency for National Security (ANB). The charges came after CIN-CG published an investigative piece in which the two journalists examined …
Monthly Monitoring Highlights – May
During the month of May, the RDN monitoring team identified a range of hateful narratives and discourse driven by sexism and misogyny, alongside hate speech and intolerance, denial of war crimes and misinformation. Bullying and misogyny on reality TV in Albania During the last days of April and the beginning of May 2026, the reality TV program “Ferma …
Born as a guest: The unwritten code denying Albanian daughters their heritage
In many Albanian families, the question of inheritance is not decided in courtrooms or by law, but around kitchen tables quietly, almost automatically. Daughters are often left out of these conversations, not because the law excludes them, but because tradition does. For generations, it has been widely accepted that a girl does not truly “belong” to …
Beyond Ethnic Binaries: Queering Peacebuilding
When a Kosovo Albanian drag queen stepped onto the stage at Belgrade Pride in 2019, the moment carried more political meaning than many formal dialogue initiatives. Nervous about how a Serbian audience would react to an Albanian performer from Kosovo, Diva — one of Kosovo’s first drag performers — carefully chose an Albanian pop song …
